


Untitled Canon-Compliant Phone Call To Mombasa

by applecameron



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Implied Relationship, M/M, implied past relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 13:12:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8892073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/applecameron/pseuds/applecameron





	

Eames picks up before the phone actually rings (he's got a knack for that and has used it to unnerve a great many people in the past) and hears a *click* that means it's a certain point man of his acquaintance. He clears his throat and says nothing. 

Arthur breaks first. "Dom's coming to see you." 

"Oh? You can't be arsed to come yourself?" His voice is mild, though. 

Arthur sighs. They both know Arthur doesn't want to come to Mombasa, doesn't want to walk through the remains of his relationship with Eames, of whatever it was between them, powerful and nebulous and pained, that Arthur abandoned in favor of coddling Dominic bloody Cobb's insane quest for redemption. But they both know Arthur is demonstrably incapable of abandoning Cobb to his fate. So here they sit, on opposite sides of a phone line, instead of sharing a bed. 

The silence on the line slowly fills with all the things Arthur has pointedly not been admitting about Cobb for a long time. It appears that _I can't keep him from completely derailing much longer_ , has finally outpaced _he's going to get himself killed without me_ , and _I can't stop trying_. "Eames." Arthur's commitment to the man is something even Eames, who has made a study of Arthur for many years, finds inexplicable. It is simply his nature. 

And then there is the terseness in his delivery behind which Arthur hides _I'm failing_. _Help me_. "Please just say yes." 

Eames resumes the conversation they've been gnawing the edges of the entire time Arthur's been dashing about the world trying to rescue a man who does not deserve a tenth - Christ, a hundredth - of Arthur's devotion: "Darling, if you cared about those children like you say you'd let them stay with their grandmother, very far away from this particular murderer." 

"He's not - " 

"I don't care." Eames says flatly. He inhales. "But I will say yes." _For you_. _I will back you, and be the counterweight you need, and make sure Cobb doesn't get either of us killed_. 

The quality of Arthur's silence changes to something like relief. Eames listens to him swallow, and thinks about the way his throat moves when he does that, and the purse of his mouth, and the way the hairs on his arms are visible when he rolls up his sleeves, and all the other parts that fail to make up the ineffable sum that is Arthur. "Thank you." 

"I'll make him dance a bit, first." Eames warns. 

And now Arthur is smiling, just a little, Eames can tell, even over the phone, even after all this time. "I expect nothing less." 

_And then I will bring you home, wherever that is._


End file.
